CHANDLER, Ariz. — A former Amazon employee from Chandler was sentenced to federal prison this week after they pleaded guilty to fraudulent schemes that included embezzling funds from their former employer.
Vu Anh Nguyen, 26, was ordered to spend 2.5 years in prison after he admitted to conducting two schemes that resulted in losses worth more than $700,000.
One scheme involved Nguyen stealing money from Amazon by using his employee access to issue $96,000 worth of refunds to buyer accounts that he owned or controlled. The scam involved up to 318 unauthorized refunds for orders purchased through eight Amazon accounts, court records show.
Once Amazon discovered the fraud, the company reported Nguyen to the FBI.
Court records show Nguyen worked at an Amazon facility in Tempe and resigned from the company in March 2020.
The other scheme involved the defendant committing a type of securities fraud known as "free riding," which involves transferring funds into stock trading accounts from bank accounts that were not sufficiently funded with cash.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office of Arizona, Nguyen's fraudulent trading resulted in losses to trading entities worth nearly $650,000.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge James Teilborg ordered the defendant to pay more than $700,000 in restitution to the victims.
Nguyen is not the first Amazon employee to take advantage of their access to the corporation's information and databases.
Rohit Kadimisetty pleaded guilty earlier this year to bribing former Amazon colleagues in exchange for confidential information about sellers on the platform, according to the Seattle Times.
In March, an Amazon employee in Florida was accused of stealing $270,000 worth of coins from one of the company's fulfillment centers.
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